A Fontana man who impersonated an ICE agent and possessed a cache of weapons and destructive devices was sentenced Monday to two years in federal prison.
Matthew Ryan Johnston, 26, was sentenced by Judge Percy Anderson in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles for possession of an unregistered destructive device, according to a Department of Justice news release.
Throughout last year, Johnston used fake ICE badges and uniforms to falsely represent himself as an ICE agent to the public, the news release stated. On one occasion, he used unauthorized red and blue police lights to chase another car and caused a traffic collision.
On another occasion, Johnston’s ex-girlfriend accidentally activated the red and blue police lights in his car. When she was pulled over by a San Bernardino County Sheriff’s detective, Johnston pretended to be an ICE agent while on the phone with the detective at the scene.
Another time, Johnston impersonated an ICE agent when he took a report from someone about a potential undocumented person, and he falsely identified himself as an ICE agent to various employees and patrons at the Déjà Vu Showgirls club in City of Industry.
Last October, federal agents obtained a warrant and searched Johnston’s home, where they found a cache of weapons, illegal destructive devices, about 10,000 rounds of ammunition, body armor carriers with “ICE” and “Federal Agent” patches on them, and red and blue emergency lights, the news release stated.
Additionally, agents found a homemade, slam-fire device designed to shoot 12-gauge shotgun shells, as well as an AR-15 .223 caliber rifle equipped with an attached 37 mm flare launcher and an improvised shotgun shell with anti-personnel ammunition.
With geo-coordinates from Johnston’s cell phone, agents searched the open desert and found five unexploded or partially exploded IEDs, an extended smoke grenade, an exploded container of a binary explosive and the remnants of an exploded pipe bomb.